Matthew drenching Central America and Mexico
Tropical Storm Matthew continues to dump heavy rains over Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and neighboring regions of Mexico today. Puerto Barrios, in northern Guatemala, has received 4.57" of rain in the past 24 hours. With Matthew expected to slow down and dissipate by Sunday, the storm's heavy rains of 6 - 15 inches can be expected to cause severe flooding and dangerous mudslides. The rains are of particular concern for Guatemala, which suffered its rainiest August in its history, followed by the landfall of Tropical Depression 11E during the first week of September, which dumped torrential rains on the country that triggered flooding and mudslides that killed at least 48 Guatemalans.
Figure 1. Visible satellite image from NASA's Terra satellite taken yesterday, showing Tropical Storm Matthew approaching landfall.
Figure 2. Forecast rain amounts for the 5-day period beginning at 2am EDT today (Saturday, September 25) as predicted by this morning's 2am EDT (6Z) run of the GFDL. Very heavy rains in excess of eight inches (yellow colors) are predicted for portions of Central America along Matthew's track. Image credit: Morris Bender, NOAA/GFDL.
Lisa
Tropical Storm Lisa pulled a bit of a surprise last night, intensifying into a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds in the far Eastern Atlantic. Lisa's longitude of 27.9W at the time made it the 10th strongest hurricane so far east in the Atlantic. Record keeping began in 1851, but it is likely that many hurricanes stronger than Lisa were missed prior to the advent of reliable satellite coverage in 1974. Lisa is even farther east than Category 4 Hurricane Julia, which earlier this month set the record for strongest hurricane ever recorded so far east. Lisa's glory will be short-lived, though, as strong upper level winds out of the west are expected to increase tonight, bringing high wind shear of 20 - 45 knots over the storm. The high shear may be capable of destroying the storm by early next week. It appears unlikely that Lisa will affect any land areas.
Forecast for the rest of the tropics
Most of the models continue to predict that by Wednesday, the remnants of Matthew, and/or a piece of a tropical disturbance over the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Guatemala, will evolve into a huge and very wet low pressure system that will start spinning over Central America and the Western Caribbean. NHC has been referring to this expected storm as a "monsoon low", and these sorts of storms are very dangerous for Central America and the Western Caribbean, even if they do not develop into a tropical storm. In October 2007, a similar monsoon low I dubbed "the sleeping giant" spent a week spinning over the region, dumping very heavy rains over all of Central America and the countries bordering the Western Caribbean. Rains from this system triggered flooding that killed 45 people in Haiti, damaged thousands of homes in Cuba, and caused havoc in Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Mexico, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas. A similar type of storm is likely to develop on Wednesday and Thursday, and most of Central America and the nations surrounding the Western Caribbean can expect to see dangerous flooding rains develop this week in association with this giant low. Most of the models also predict that this big low will eventually develop into a tropical storm or hurricane that would be drawn northwards over Cuba late in the week, and threaten the Bahamas, Florida, or the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast. This is an exceptionally difficult system to forecast correctly, and the models have been coming up with some pretty unusual solutions as to what might happen. We'll just have to wait and see what unfolds over the next few days.
I'll have an update Sunday by 2pm.
Jeff Masters
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Watching it now... Thanks for the reminder.
yes, I have noticed this for most of the summer.Not really any heavy thunderstorms as years gone by and little lightning. Lightning capital of the world not this year Zephyrhills fl
"Had a Air Burst Ball Lightening strike unlike anything I ever seen from a Thunderstorm before.
A single round point flash with a unreal Boom,,that knocked the power out for a few.
Man,that was one Loud thunderclap report."
After seeing this, I had to relay a kinda similar experience, on May 27. We were taking a break from rehearsal and stepped outside to the most amazing lightning show any of us had ever seen. That's a lot coming from storm-addicted me. It was an incredible lightning storm with virtually no rain. But there was one singular moment of collective disbelief:
A huge thick bolt of lightning suddenly flashed very near to us. It was long lasting, ~2 seconds. Then, the impossible - the entire bolt morphed from lightning's typical appearance into dozens of glowing spheres along the original track, exactly like a follow-the-dots appearance. The 'line' of light was gone. In it's place were spheres, all forming/appearing as if they were resting on the track line, sitting atop of it. Strangely enough, this huge close bolt also had very little thunder associated with it. A soft mild roll was about it. You'd have expected a deafening crack with this bolt, but no.
There were 3 more of these over the next half hour, but much less dramatic. We also saw a very quick formation of ball lightning forming at the heart of one of the 'webs' of neuron-looking lightning lattices that kept occurring.
What does anyone think?
48Hrs
I'm thinking about Timothy Leary.
What is the meaning of the 0Z, 6Z, 12Z, 18Z in the naming of the runs?
I know what zulu time is, but I don't understand if it's referring to that? Because there isn't much difference in 0-18hrs to model runs from the start.
So obviously I don't get what that means....
Thanks for any help. And good to see ya back K3!
What are all the x's on that map?
5:00 PM AST Sat Sep 25
Location: 23.7°N 28.4°W
Max sustained: 50 mph
Moving: N at 12 mph
Min pressure: 996 mb
Bravo!
+
4:00 PM CDT Sat Sep 25
Location: 17.4°N 89.4°W
Max sustained: 35 mph
Moving: NW at 14 mph
Min pressure: 1003 mb
ZCZC MIATCDAT5 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
TROPICAL DEPRESSION MATTHEW DISCUSSION NUMBER 10
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL152010
400 PM CDT SAT SEP 25 2010
HIGH RESOLUTION VISIBLE SATELLITE IMAGES AND SURFACE OBSERVATIONS
FROM CENTRAL AMERICA SHOW THAT THE CIRCULATION OF MATTHEW MOVED
ACROSS THE SOUTHERN GULF OF HONDURAS AND BELIZE WHILE WEAKENING.
THE CYCLONE DOES NOT HAVE A TIGHT INNER CORE AND WE ARE BASICALLY
TRACKING AN AREA OF MINIMUM PRESSURE SURROUNDED BY A BROAD CYCLONIC
CIRCULATION. HOWEVER...THE CIRCULATION IS LARGE WITH NUMEROUS
RAINBANDS FROM THE ADJACENT EASTERN PACIFIC ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA
TO THE NORTHWEST CARIBBEAN SEA. THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS 30 KNOTS
AND GIVEN THAT THE CENTER IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN OVER LAND...
WEAKENING IS FORECAST.
MATTHEW HAS NOT SLOWED DOWN YET...AND IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST
AT ABOUT 12 KNOTS. HOWEVER...STEERING CURRENTS ARE EXPECTED TO
COLLAPSE SOON AND MATTHEW IS LIKELY TO BECOME STATIONARY OVER THE
YUCATAN PENINSULA UNTIL DISSIPATION IN ABOUT 2 OR 3 DAYS. IN
FACT...MOST OF THE MODELS KEEP THE CYCLONE BASICALLY MEANDERING
ACROSS THE YUCATAN PENINSULA.
WE MUST EMPHASIZE THAT DESPITE THE EXPECTED WEAKENING OF MATTHEW...
TORRENTIAL RAINS WILL CONTINUE OVER MOST OF CENTRAL AMERICA DURING
THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS.
FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS
INITIAL 25/2100Z 17.4N 89.4W 30 KT...INLAND
12HR VT 26/0600Z 18.0N 90.5W 25 KT...INLAND
24HR VT 26/1800Z 18.5N 91.0W 25 KT...POST-TROP/REMNT LOW
36HR VT 27/0600Z 18.5N 91.0W 20 KT...POST-TROP/REMNT LOW
48HR VT 27/1800Z 18.5N 91.0W 20 KT...POST-TROP/REMNT LOW
72HR VT 28/1800Z 19.0N 90.0W 20 KT...POST-TROP/REMNT LOW
96HR VT 29/1800Z...DISSIPATED
$$
FORECASTER AVILA
NNNN
That's the times of the model release. Not the times of the model forecast. Oz is released at 0000 zulu.
It's the initialization time. That is zero hour on the model.
No, I'm 56 and quite sober.
Vort Max = High value of vorticity
I think I would LOVE to see that!!!
i am not positive bnut i think that may be the tim with 18 being 6pm and 0 being 12 midinght
I was over-thinking it, lol
Thank you!
ahhh come on xcool - now you're throwing in all these weird times to get me all confused again, LOL! j/k
?????????????
Yes! That was my next question, because I read somewhere recently to ignore either the 6/18 or the 0/12 (can't remember which way).
So, why are 2 of them more reliable?
The NHC hasn't covered their tracks yet. I guess they think it all but over. The Bay of Campeche isn't that far off though.
Just updated it.
I know that 00z and 12z incorporate more information and data than 06z and 18z, but I don't know exactly which data is included and omited respectively. Therefore, it's been said around here at 00z and 12z are more reliable.
I live in Palm Beach County and we are green on your map. Light green but green. However it still is dry for us. Grass fields with no irrigation systems are brown etc..We are just very spoiled and used to being DARK green all the time that even a shift to lighter green is noticeable...let along yellow or orange. You guys must be really hurting!
Wher in Palm Beach County are you? I am in East Boca and everything is green and saturated.
Thanks for that info Brew!
He who casts the first stone........
Personally, I'm hoping the east solution is the one that comes to fruition.
Monsoon.......wow this is such an amazing season from a meteorological standpoint. Monsoon to me always made me think think of Asia...
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